Pastor Matt: Last week I read something that I think is a pretty good description of how this year has gone so far. I want to share that with you as we begin. It’s titled, “If 2020 Was a Math Problem.” “If you’re going down a river at 2 MPH and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to re-shingle your roof?” That’s a pretty good description for how many of us have felt with this year of 2020. Today, we’re going to be wrapping up our series, Understanding the Times, where we’re really trying to understand the world around us, culture and society, and what all is going on. What does it look like from God’s angle, and how are we to respond as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ?
We began the series, and we took a look at truth and history. In that first message, I shared with you that in order to understand the times we must realize three things. Number one is that followers of Jesus are in a spiritual battle. Number two—that truth exists, and it conforms to reality. Then, number three—that the purpose of history is for us to remember and learn not necessarily like it. Last week, we took a look at the purpose and the limits of government and how we are to respond as followers of Jesus Christ. I shared with you the four spheres of stewardship within society, and then we tackled that small little question of “Is there ever a time that followers of Jesus should not submit to the governing authorities?”
This week, as you can tell from your handout, we’re going to take a look at justice, equality, and action. What is justice? How do we get it? The desire for justice is actually a really good thing. Well, sort of… It’s a good thing if your desire for justice is justice that matches up with God’s definition of justice. But currently we find ourselves living in a world and a culture where people use that word, “justice,” a lot. Unfortunately, they mean the word, “justice,” a lot of different ways. Sometimes we’re not even sure what they mean by justice, but it’s obvious it’s not exactly God’s definition of justice.
So this week, I want to begin as we’ve begun every message in this series. That’s to do two things. First, I want to pray and ask God’s help, and then I want to go directly to God’s Word and let that be the foundation of our discussion. Let’s see what God Himself has to say about justice and equality. Then, we’ll take a look at it from there. Would you bow with me as we pray now? Father, once again I come to You and ask for Your help, for Your wisdom, and for Your insight as we open Your Word and we consider the times that we live in. Holy Spirit, please guide our discussion on these matters as You have throughout this series. You are the Spirit of Truth who guides us into the Truth, and I ask that You would please do that now. There’s so much discussion and confusion and untruth in our culture on these topics, Father—the topics of justice and equality. Please open our eyes and our ears and our hearts and our minds. Help us to understand what Godly justice is and what Godly equality looks like and what Godly action looks like in the middle of all that is going on. I pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
So as we consider justice, equality, and action, let’s go to God’s Word. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” Micah 6:8–“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you. But to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Exodus 23:1-3 says, “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.”
The next passage I want to share with you is the conclusion of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. In this parable, the master goes and hires different workers throughout the day. Then he gives them all the same payment at the end. We’re going to pick up in Matthew, starting in verse 13. “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” Then, finally Acts 17:31 says, “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
As we have with the rest of this series and this day that we wrap up things, I want to remind you that what we’re going with this series is we’re water skiing across the surface of the water taking a look at these issues, these things that we need to be aware of as followers of Jesus Christ. What we’re not doing—what we unfortunately don’t have time to do in our Sunday messages—is to do a deep dive, to scuba dive down to the depths of the ocean floor and look at everything involved with the topics that we take a look at. So for those of you who want to dig deeper, I may not go as deep as you’d like right now with this message. But, that’s why I’m supplying you with lots of resources. Each week I have given you a resource list that has been growing. In fact, we have a web page that you can find the link to in your handout, where you can see all of the resources in one place that I have given you each week of this series.
I’ve had many conversations with folks, and many of you, who it seems like the real tension, the real place that we’re really trying to figure out is the action. What are we supposed to do as followers of Jesus? What can we do? What I want to do is I want to briefly talk about justice and equality to allow you to understand how that fits together, because these are two big things that are going on in our society. Again, I’m probably not going to say as much as you want, so you can dig deeper and take a look at this further. Then, I want to get to action. What can we actually do as followers of Jesus as we think about our responsibility and our stewardship as Christians to be salt and light in this world that we live in?
Let’s just jump right into justice. For starters, what is justice? When we say that word—justice—each one of us in our mind has some picture of what justice is. But, what is justice? Let’s take a look at what the dictionary says justice is. Merriam-Webster offers this: “the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments; the quality of being just, impartial, or fair; conformity to truth, fact, or reason.” That’s not a bad definition to start thinking about what justice is. We can see one of the things that Webster brings out in this definition is that there’s multiple parts to what justice is. There’s these multiple dimensions.
It’s important to understand that often from a human standpoint, and we are humans, so that’s the only standpoint that we can understand really. We tend to get caught up in just one aspect of justice, just one dimension of it. We lose sight that there’s actually multiple dimensions. In fact what we really get caught up in is when we think of justice we think of the results. Justice was done! But as followers of Christ, there’s some things that we need to know. God is just, and He commands us to be just. A few moments ago when I began with the Scriptures that I read, we saw that justice is rooted in the very nature of who God is. Deuteronomy 32:4 said, “...for all his ways are justice...just and upright is he.”
If you want to know what justice is, just look at God. Everything that He does is just. In fact, He’s the standard of what justice is. God is just, and He commands us, His followers, to be just, as well. I think the best verse for this that I also read is Micah 6:8. There's no way to be more clear and more direct than what Micah 6:8 says. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you…” He requires that we “...do justice…” We also saw in Acts 17:31 that God will be the Judge of the nations, and He will be the Judge of the nations by His standards.
I found an interesting quote by George Mason. He was a part of the Constitutional Convention back in 1787. Listen to what he says about God’s justice. “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punished national sins by national calamities.” You see, when it comes to justice, when it comes to God’s ultimate expression of justice, Jesus will judge everyone when He comes to this world again to wrap up history. Jesus came the first time as a baby, and He came as our Savior. But when Jesus returns, He’s going to come back as Judge.
Personal judgment, judgment for each and every one of us who’s ever lived on this planet, will happen when this world wraps up. However, for nations, that is the collective groups of people who live together under a constitution, live under government forms and laws. Nations will actually be judged in this world. In fact, we’ve seen this happen all throughout history that nations have been judged for their actions. We will continue to see this happen until the Lord Jesus comes and wraps up this world as we know it. So when we’re talking about justice, it’s important to note that there’s two key concepts related to justice.
Those two key concepts are rights and duties. Rights, what’s a right? As image bearers of God, we have an equal right to be treated with dignity and to exercise our free will within the social spheres God has ordained. In fact, we talked about these spheres last week. Those are rights, but also related are duties. It’s what we’re obligated to do to not violate the rights of others and to positively help others where we can. Rights and duties are a part of justice. I have rights and duties, and so do you. You have rights and duties. But when it comes to justice, many of the problems that we experience in this world have to do with one person or one group over-emphasizing rights or duties.
Let me explain what I mean by that. First of all, overemphasis leads to injustice. One of the reasons we’re experiencing injustice is because there’s overemphasis of rights or duties. Here’s what I mean. An overemphasis of rights leads to selfishness and pride. If you think that all the good that you experience is just based on your choice and your talents, well, it can kind of lead to some arrogance. Much of the good that we experience has to do with the time that we live in. It has to do with the families that we’re born into. It has to do with just pure talents and abilities that God Himself has given us. It’s not anything that we can control ourselves, but just the circumstances that we’re in.
I think one of the best examples of this we see in the Scripture in Ecclesiastes 9:11. “I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.” Much of the success that you and I have experienced in our life has to do with the time and the place that we were born. We need to recognize with humility that God has allowed us to live in this time, and He has given us abilities and the families that we were born in. In fact, think about this for a moment.
There are vaccines and antibiotics available to us because we live in the year 2020 that just a hundred years ago weren't available. People died of things that today are nothing, because there wasn’t the proper medical aid available. The fact that we live today in 2020, even with all of the problems that we’re experiencing this year, we have some blessings and some advantages from God Himself because we’re living in this day and age. We can also overemphasize the duties. That leads to a loss of individual dignity and responsibility for one’s own choices.
Here’s how it works. If you overemphasize duty, actually if you overemphasize someone else’s duty to you, you start to feel entitled. You start to feel like others owe you, and then if you don’t get that duty that you feel like you deserve, then you can start to have this victim mentality set in. In fact, this is part of what we’re seeing right now in our culture today—this overemphasis of someone else’s duty to someone else. We’re seeing this with the rise of things like critical theory, which is rooted in cultural Marxism, an atheistic worldview that basically reduces the world to two categories—the oppressors and the oppressed. Obviously according to this worldview, the oppressors owe so much to the oppressed.
But when it comes to Biblical justice, that is justice that lines up with God’s nature and God’s character, there’s actually multiple dimensions. I mentioned this a moment ago, but there are multiple dimensions to God’s justice. Before we get into that, I want to talk about something that is a hot topic today. That hot topic has to do with justice in the sense that justice is in the name of it. The topic is “social justice.” I want you to watch several clips from a longer lecture that we have edited together to give you a sense of what social justice is and what the problem with it is. This is from about a 40-minute lecture done by Dr. Voddie Baucham, and I think he is one of the experts today in the Christian arena, who has a Biblical-worldview understanding of what social justice is and why it’s the opposite of what God’s justice is. So, take a look at this video clip.
(Video begins) Voddie Baucham: The biggest problem with the concept of social justice with the words, “social justice,” with the terminology of social justice is that it doesn’t mean what we think it means. Often times when we address the issue of social justice, those who have decided to go ahead and use the terminology want first, for the terminology to be understood based on their intentions and not based on the broader understanding. That is simply, number one, not fair, and secondly, quite naive. Because the social justice world is not about justice.
Let’s look at the mission of social justice as we continue to understand its meaning. The mission of social justice really happens in stages. You’ve heard about some of it. Number one, identifying disadvantaged groups… It’s important to understand that social justice is not about the individual. It’s about the group. This is why. You can say as much as you want about an individual having success, but the issue is not individuals who have success or if individuals can have success. Assess group outcomes. Again, this is not about individual outcomes. This is about group outcomes. We have to assess group outcomes.
Thirdly, assign blame for disparate outcomes. Assign blame for disparate outcomes. If this group is having a negative outcome in this particular area, then we need to find out who’s to blame for that. There needs to be a redistribution of power and resources in order to redress those grievances. That’s the answer, and that has to be the answer according to social justice. You may say, “Well, wait a minute. This group may be disadvantaged in this area because of something within that group.” Ah ah ah ah ah! That’s victim-blaming. “Yeah, but there could be statistical reasons for…” I don’t want to hear about your statistics. You’re blaming the victim. The answer is a redress of grievances. That’s the ideology of social justice.
If you think that those don’t make any sense, then you don’t understand the social justice movement. Let me explain this for you. There are three main areas encompassing the social justice movement. Three main areas—there are others for sure, and we’ll talk about some of those. But, there are three main areas. The first is minority equality at large. Minority equality, okay? The second one is feminism and women’s rights. And, the third one is LGBTQ+ rights. Minority equality—when they talk about minority equality, this idea that we’ve already talked about of success and wealth are a result of illegitimate privilege, unless that success and wealth has been accrued by someone who does not belong to the illegitimately privileged class.
For example, Asians are a minority. Right, Asians are a minority? However, on college entrance/college admission, they’re whooping everybody. Not everybody—e’rebody—that’s beyond everybody. Right? Economically, they surpass whites. But again, not an issue. Why? Because inequality equals injustice unless it accrues to the benefit of a minority. Feminism and women’s rights—again, this is another one. It is always part of the argument. This is the heart of the social justice movement. The feminist movement is there, and you cannot… I believe it’s naive for those who want to say, “You know, on the one hand, no we don’t want to promote feminism, and we don’t want to promote LGBTQ+ rights, all this other stuff. We really just want… We don’t even want in on all of the so-called minority equality movement. It’s just racial equality and even specifically there, just black people and white people.” That’s like putting hot water in the front of your bathtub, and saying you don’t want the back to heat up. You can’t get away from it.
Then, the third one—LGBTQA+. By the way, I’m not being funny when I say, “LGBTQA+.” L-Lesbian; B-Bisexual; G-Gay; T-Transgender; Q—Queer or Questioning; and A is for Allies .LGBTQ—Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning, and their allies. Then, “+,” because we don’t want to offend anybody because they haven’t been included as part of the acronym. (Video ends)
Pastor Matt: Social justice is not justice. In fact, it’s actually injustice. I want to encourage you to take the time. The entire lecture that you got to see a portion of is about 40 minutes, and I would highly recommend you watching that. We’ve given you the link to that in the resources for this message, as well. So, justice is not just about the results but also the process of arriving at those results. I mentioned earlier that when it comes to justice, most of us have this idea or this picture in our mind of what justice is or what justice must be done and what we think that is. But, that picture in our mind usually has to do with the results. What we think ought to happen to someone, someone who has wronged us or who has wronged someone that we love… The reality is that the results are just a part of what Godly, Biblical justice is all about. The process that we use to arrive at the result is very important. Without taking that into account, we can actually miss the mark of what Biblical justice is all about.
I want to introduce you to the five dimensions of God’s justice, but we’re not going to camp out here. I realize that this is the place in this message where many of you are going to want a lot more than what we’re going to talk about right now. So, here’s what I have for you. This week in the Sunday extra’s podcast, part of that is going to be a clip of some teaching done by Matt Sprankle, one of the 17:6 Network pastors. He’s Associate Pastor at Church in the Valley in Ontario Ranch, and he did a talk on equality and justice. He’s going to go a lot further into the five dimensions of justice than what I’m going to do right now. I just want you to know that these five dimensions exist because we tend to just think about the results. We don’t think about the bigger picture.
Here’s the thing I also want you to know. These are technical terms. They sound funny, and they’re even harder to say. Here are the five dimensions, very quickly, of God’s justice. The first dimension is remunerative. It means that God metes out or gives out just rewards as an expression of His love. We should respect the rights of other people, and we should allow them to enjoy the rewards that they are receiving from God, even if we don’t think they deserve those rewards.
The second dimension is meritorious. That means that we grant unequal distribution based on merit. The reality here is that there is unequal distribution of power, money, opportunity. It’s all based on merit. Everyone has an equal right to succeed, and everyone has an equal right to try. But, you don’t all have an equal right to the same outcomes. This is where the reality of cause and effect actually comes into effect here. God set the universe up to be cause and effect.
The third dimension is substantive. That means that the results… We respect the rights given to all—life, liberty, property, reputation—whatever it is. A lot of these have to do with those inalienable rights that we looked at last week. If my definition of justice—the definition that I’m using—violates this dimension of God’s justice, then I don’t have a Godly definition of justice. This is the problem with the social justice moment. This is the problem with ideologies like socialism. This is where they fail, right here in this dimension.
Next dimension is retributive. That means that God metes out or pays back just punishment as an expression of His wrath. This is the one that everybody gets hung up on. If somebody wronged us, then we want God to pay out His wrath on that person who did whatever they did to us. Sometimes we think of this as revenge, but there’s a lot more to justice than just the punishment that is given out for an act of injustice.
The final dimension is procedural. That is when God uses fair processes in decision making. There’s due process, and there’s equal protection. God is a God of procedural justice. Fair processes are just part of the way things work. Due process is that it should be impartial, fair, and have true judges based on truth. We talked about truth a couple of weeks ago. There should also be equal protection that all people’s rights should come into effect, that we treat everyone according to the merits of their claim not just based on the group identity, which is where we get into the problem with social justice. It’s all about the identity. It’s not the merits of the claim. It’s not the individual.
Justice should be blind to socioeconomic or racial status. That shouldn’t matter when it comes to justice, especially when we look at justice from God’s point of view. Here’s the problem. Again, this is where we get into problems with socialism and with social justice. If we allow just process to be corrupted, and by “corrupted” that we allow special treatment or partiality to be given, then we aren’t getting justice. In fact, we’re getting vengeance. Then what’s going to happen is those victims are going to call for justice, and we don't use just process. So then, just process is never given, and we just have this vicious cycle where no justice ever actually occurs.
When it comes to justice, to Godly justice, it’s got to meet all five dimensions. Obviously, there’s a whole lot more that we could say about those dimensions, and Matt actually does in his message that we’re going to have a part of it for your Sunday Extra Podcast. I would encourage you to listen to that when it comes out later this week. I want to move our discussion now to equality and make a few comments about that.
The first one is that God, as Creator, has made us equal in some ways but unequal in others. Have you ever thought about that? You look around, and you see that we’re not all equal in some ways. But, God, as Creator, has made us equal in others. What I mean by that is that as God’s children, as His creation, each and every one of us have been made in His image, which in and of itself gives us great value. We’re all equally made in God’s image. Therefore, we all have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. These are some of those negative rights that we looked at last week, the inalienable rights that we see in The Declaration of Independence.
Listen, though, to Exodus 4:11–“The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” God’s saying right here that He makes us equal in some ways and unequal in others. Some people can’t speak. Some people can’t hear. Some people can’t see. That actually came from God. So, how has God made us equal in some ways and not equal in some others? Well, here’s a couple of obvious examples. When you look around at the general population, there’s height. We have different heights. There’s weight. We have different weights. There’s natural talents and abilities. Then, He gave some of us a perfectly shaped head, and He gave others hair to cover that up. So, God Himself makes us equal in some ways and unequal in others.
The next important thing that we have to know is this. The existence of inequalities in general isn’t by definition unjust. This is where justice and equality work together. Remember the meritorious dimension of justice? That was where everyone has an equal right to succeed and try but not everyone has an equal right to the same outcome. Those who give greater effort, those who try harder, those who make better choices have better success. Think about this. If you work harder than I work or you work and I don’t work at all, it’s not injustice for you to drive a nicer car than I do or live in a nicer house than I do or even be able to go to a nicer restaurant than I can go to.
Remember, again, Ecclesiastes 9:11 says, “I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race…And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.” Again, much of the inequality that we see and that we experience is not a result of injustice. It’s a result of choices. It’s a result of the time. It’s a result of chance. There’s other factors involved, but it’s not about injustice. When it comes to inequality, if there’s a violation of one’s rights based on race, ethnicity, gender of male or female as God determined, or economic status, then it’s wrong.
The existence of inequality is not, in general, the existence of injustice. So, does inequality exist? Yes. Does unjust inequality exist? Absolutely. How do you tell the difference? Here’s a key question to ask, and that is: Has someone’s rights been violated? Again, we go back to the rights and the duties, which we said were important. Has someone’s rights been violated. If you see perceived inequality, then the question to see if justice has happened is: “Have their rights been violated?” I’ve listed as a resource at the top of your resources some questions you can use to help determine this. The first one is “Is the inequality the result of a violation of the 5 dimensions of justice? If so, which ones?
Here’s another really important question—Is the inequality within my stewardship to correct? Last week we talked about the spheres of stewardship, and one of the difficulties that we have today in this world that we live in is that we’re so connected, we’re so media-driven, we know stuff that happens all over the world in other cities, in other countries. It doesn’t matter. We hear things and see things that happen all over the place. The question is that is it in my stewardship to correct it? If it’s something that happened in another country or even in another state or city, it may not be in my stewardship. In fact, it’s probably not. I don’t vote in that city or that country or that county, so I can't really affect change there.
However, if there is inequality here in Fort Worth, Texas, in Tarrant County where I’m standing right now and where many of us who are a part of Hope Church on a regular basis live and work, it is our stewardship to vote from men and women who stand for justice, who stand for Godly values, and to vote those types of people into office who will be making decisions on our behalf. Then if we see that there are people who stand for injustice and are doing inequality based on injustice, then we need to vote those people out. That’s part of our stewardship. We can have effect with that, but when it’s somewhere else in the world, it’s easy to just get riled up about it. But, it’s not even within our stewardship to do anything about it.
Another question is, “Who are the violators? What are the facts?” Again, we talked about this in the first week that we’re in this post-Truth time right now where people sort of use facts that they like as feelings, but then if they don’t, they just put them aside. But, what are the actual facts of the case? Can the victims be made whole? What’s the most just way to do this? These are some questions we need to ask to determine if the inequality is based on injustice. So, the goal is not equality of outcome. That’s not the goal. That’s not the goal within God’s justice. It’s not equality of outcome but equality of equal protection of the dignity and the rights of everyone, in line with God’s righteousness and God’s justice.
Before we start talking about action, at the risk of being Captain Obvious, does injustice exist in this world? Yes. Does injustice exist in America? Yes. Does it exist in our city here in Fort Worth, Texas? Yes. Why? Why does injustice exist? The simple answer is sin. You want to know the simple answer to all of the problems that we experience? It’s sin. Justice in the Biblical sense means conforming to the character of God. Humans—we’re sinners. We are sinners by nature, and we fail to conform to God’s character. Because we’re sinners, we sin. Because we’re sinners, we are unjust. All the problems in the world can lead back to the problem of sin.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we should promote, we should live, we should exercise, we should fight for Biblical justice. But, we’ve got to realize that God’s best for us. What fully aligns with His nature and His character has been marred by sin here in this world, and we will not ultimately get to see Godly justice occur until this world wraps up. So as long as there are sinners, there will be injustice. That’s the simple answer. But, there’s another point of confusion that I want to just talk about for a moment. This is sort of the intersection of where justice and equality and sin and law all sort of come together. Those four streets come together and make up an intersection. I want to give you the fill-ins for this part of your handout, and then I want to read you a statement that I think is a great summary of exactly what’s going on here.
On your handout, it says another common point of confusion, and there’s three points there. Some things are wrong because they’re immoral, things like murder, adultery, theft. They’re wrong because they’re immoral. Then some things are wrong because they’re prohibited. A simple example would be driving a hundred miles an hour on the freeway here in America. I’ve seen some 85 mph speed limits, but I’ve never seen a hundred. So, it’s prohibited. We’re prohibited from driving a hundred miles an hour. Then, the third one is that not all sins are considered wrong in this world that we live in. That’s one of the things that we’ve got to realize. Not all sins are considered wrong by the world that we live in.
I want to read you this statement. This is from Gary DeMar. It’s a great summary of the distinction between sins and crimes. He says, “The Bible makes a distinction between sins and crimes. Not all crimes are sins, and not all sins are crimes. There are sins of the heart that may not express themselves in outward actions. Strife, jealousy, envy, anger, resentment, and lust are sins which cannot be punished by civil authorities because human authorities have no way of judging the heart. There are, however, times when sins manifest themselves outwardly and become crimes...The inward expression of the heart, hate, expressed itself in an outward action, murder. Both hate and murder are sins but only one (murder) is a crime. While citizens can only be punished by the state for crimes, citizens are always liable before God for sins. Hate and murder fall into the category of sins before God.”
There’s great confusion right now for us, because this country that we live in, over time as those who have more of a liberal and a statist view of government have gained power, there are some things that are clearly sins that are no longer crimes. Last week, I talked about the socialist agenda rooted in an atheistic worldview and how they see the state as god. One of the things that we are experiencing right now in our country is there is more moral outrage over things that are merely prohibited but not things that are immoral. How can that even occur that we have moral outrage over something small that’s prohibited, but there’s no outrage, no discussion, over things that are morally wrong?
To the liberal and the socialist, things like rioting and abortion are not wrong because the State, who is their god, has authorized them. If it’s legal, it’s not wrong, according to this worldview. But for followers of Jesus Christ, God’s Word speaks pretty clearly on the issue of abortion. I, as a follower of Jesus, need to take that seriously. There are other issues I can take less seriously because they fall into the realm of being prohibited or being man made. I still need to drive the speed limit. I need to obey the traffic laws. I even need to obey the mandates from our counties on wearing a mask, but those are not in the same category as God’s law on the sanctity of life.
So, what do we do as followers of Christ? What can we do? I want to suggest five categories of action for you. The first one is pray. We’ve listed in your resources a link to a prayer guide. There’s many things on there that you can use to pray, but pray for justice. Pray for peace; pray for unity. Pray for our governing authorities; pray for our nation. Pray for the election. Pray, pray, pray! I’d encourage you to follow the link in the resource page and get that prayer guide. That will give you many things that you can pray about. Be a part of our 7:14 prayer challenge. Set your alarm at 7:14AM and 7:14PM and join us for at least 60 seconds to pray for our nation between now and the election.
Next, you can share your story and the gospel. I think one of the things that’s obvious right now is people are hurting. People are confused. People are looking for truth and hope and help and all of those things. One of the things that we have the opportunity right now, as followers of Jesus Christ, is to share the hope that we have with the world around us. So as often as you can, as you interact with people, share the reason for the hope that you have. Share your story. Why are you not totally wigged out right now? Why are you able to have a sense of peace and a sense of comfort even in the middle of this great storm that we’re in right now? Share your story, and share the gospel with the people in your spheres of influence.
The third thing that we can do is we can get understanding. That is one of my goals of this series is to help you get understanding on all of the complex issues that are going on right now in our nation. Again, we’ve been looking at them more at a 60,000 foot level, and we haven’t been able to dig down so deeply. But, that’s why I’ve given you resources. Hopefully, I’ve piqued your interest. I’ve caused you to think about some things. Maybe you disagree with some of the things that I’ve said, and you want to go search them out for yourself. One of the things that we’ve got to do is we’ve got to get understanding.
So, here are some things to consider as you seek understanding. One—as we move closer to the election, where do the parties and the candidates stand on the issues, issues like the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, several issues including sexual education that occurs within our schools, healthcare, education, and religious liberties. What are the parties and the candidates for, and what are they against? One of the resources that we have listed, and we also have some of them here in the building if you come to join us is just a comparison, a simple comparison, of the two parties and the issues. You can find lots of resources. We’ve linked to several different things. I would encourage you. Get understanding on what the parties and the candidates are all about—what they’re for and what they’re against.
Another thing that you need to consider is that all candidates are fallen human beings. There is no perfect candidate. There’s no perfect candidate. I’ll say it again. There is no perfect candidate. Every single leader that has ever existed in the history of this world, except for Jesus when He was here—Jesus, who was fully God and fully man and was perfect… No one else was perfect. God used men like Abraham, who was a liar, who was an adulterer when he had a son with his wife’s servant. God used men like David. Think of any leader, a man after God’s own heart. Think of any leader. There’s no perfect leader.
Another thing that I want you to consider is that God used the ungodly—the ungodly nations, the ungodly leaders—to both punish and bless His people. God used the Assyrians and the Babylonians to punish His people for their wickedness and for turning their back on God and not living in the covenant relationship that God had with His people. God used the Persians to bless His people. A couple of stories I would encourage you to read—read the story of Esther, where God uses the king at that time to offer an edict to protect God’s people, to allow them to defend themselves in the face of annihilation.
Then, there’s another interesting Persian king, Cyrus. King Cyrus is the one who released God’s people to go back home, and he actually helped them rebuild their temple. In fact, years and years before this occurred, the prophet, Isaiah, said this. “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus…” (the name of the king that would come years later) “...For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name. I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me.” It’s really interesting how God used this pagan king, who did not know the One True God. He even used this pagan king to bless His people.
Another thing that I want you to consider is the reality of the two-party system that we live in right now. I’d encourage you to read, actually read, the party platforms for the parties that are up there. We’ve linked to those platforms for you to read. I’ve also linked to a summary document, a summary article, where someone else were to summarize them. You can read that, as well. Actually read what they say. As you read what the parties stand for, as you read where they stand on the issues and their entire platform, I want you to think about Romans 1:18-32. We looked at that two weeks ago when we began this series. It’s when… It’s talking about God’s wrath and righteousness. I want to challenge you, as you read where the different parties stand on the different issues, to consider. that when you read their actual statements, I think what you’ll find is a clear distinction of one party has basically decided the path of unrighteousness. It’s very clear when you read what their documentation says. Another party is not perfect, but they haven’t chosen that exact path. I want to let you read it and decide for yourself.
The final thing I want you to consider, when it comes to getting educated, usually it’s not the Godly versus the evil but the lesser of two evils. So as you think about the parties and as you think about the candidates. Again, you’re not going to find a perfect candidate, who aligns with every single thing that lines up with the Bible. But, I think that what you will find is that there are those clearly against the Bible and the things God has specifically spoken about. Then there are those who are maybe more in line and less out of bounds than the others. You need to get understanding, both on the issues and where the parties and candidates stand. You need to understand what God’s Word says about those issues. There are things that have to do with God’’s moral law that are more important than some of the lesser issues. So where do the candidates and the parties stand on the bigger issues, the things that we should be more concerned about as God’s people?
The next thing that I want to encourage you to do is to vote on or before November 3rd. I mentioned that this election is probably one of the most important elections in many of our lifetimes. I want you to watch a very brief clip that was the conclusion of a speech given by a professor at Hillsdale College. I want you to listen to what he has to say about how important this election is.
(Video begins) “What I’m getting at is that this election is not just about a democrat taking power and a Republican coming in or vice versa. This is not a Democrat versus Republican. This is a progressive, radical revolutionary effort to change the structure of a constitutional republic that was deliberately founded to protect the people, with The Bill of Rights, the amendments, to protect the people from the mob.” (Video ends)
Pastor Matt: Currently, as citizens in this country, we have the privilege, and we have the stewardship to vote. Voting is actually a stewardship for Christ-followers. We need to seek to have a positive effect and positive change on the culture and the society that we live in. I want to invite you, and I want to encourage you to vote. When you do, choose leaders who will defend liberty and justice for all.
Then the fifth action you can take is to take further action as the Lord leads. Sometimes there are petitions about issues or programs or candidates or even current leaders that maybe need to be signed if something needs to be changed. If the Lord leads you to sign a petition, then do so. If the Lord leads you to contact your representative at the local, at the state, or at the national level and tell them that you’re unhappy about something, then contact your representative. In fact, it could be that God may be leading some of you to run for office to try to actually bring real change, to be a person of integrity, to be a person who’s trying to live God’s ways and take that into the political sector. Whatever action God gives you on a personal level, take personal further action when God calls you.
As we try to understand the times, I want you to remember something. I want you to remember this. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are in a spiritual battle. In the middle of this mess, we still have a mission. In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus says, “I have all authority in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all nations.” That’s the mission that Jesus Himself gave His people. He gave His people 2,000 years ago that mission. We are His people today. We have that same mission. The last two weeks in this series I ended giving you some quote from someone about the importance of voting.
Today, I want to look at some words from the apostle, Paul. I want you to listen to three different passages, and I want you to think about the times that we live in and the mission that we have as followers of Jesus. “For I have delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
On one hand, this election is extremely important, and I really believe that the outcome of this election may have a great effect on us as followers of Jesus to live and practice our faith as we so desire. But, I also want you to know on the other hand, the outcome of this election really doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t matter at all in the sense that whatever the environment that we live in, whatever the governmental structure that we live under, whatever circumstances that we find ourselves in, as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a mission. We have a mission to tell the world about Jesus, and that mission at times throughout the history of the world has been easier, and at other times it’s been more difficult. So, we will continue to move the mission forward, regardless of what the outcome of this election is. Here at Hope Church, God’s people, who congregate together and are a part of Hope Church, will continue to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways until the Lord Jesus Himself returns and wraps up this world in time and space.
Would you join me in prayer? Father, You’re the only One who truly understands the times we’re living in. You’re completely in control of what is happening in this world and in this country. The country of America, You have so richly blessed for nearly two hundred and fifty years. You’re the Author of history, and You’re writing a much bigger story that we humans, Your creatures, can fully understand. Please help us, Father. Give eyes to see and ears to hear and hands and feet to act. Give us wisdom, wisdom in proper timing and proper procedures. We ask that You heal our land, cause there to be great repentance—repentance at a national level. Please bring revival and awakening to our country. Please, Father, we ask it in the name of Jesus. Please help us as we are in a spiritual battle. Show us the role You desire each of us to play. Please give us the courage to take the next steps that You put in front of us even if those next steps are difficult, if they’re unpopular, or if they’re uncool. We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and who is our Savior and who is the Blessed Hope as we wait for His return. Amen.
